If your agency has an upcoming fee increase, or any other fee changes, effective July 1, 2022, send your updates to the ePermitting team ASAP by sending an email to the Kayako Helpdesk.  Important note, your fee update ticket submittal does not have to wait for your agency to adopt or approve them, the fee update process can begin parallel to your adoption/approval process.  Final drafts of fee updates are acceptable to begin this time-sensitive process.  Late submittals might not be able to be accommodated for July 1st start given the volume of requests for update.  Also a friendly reminder – new fees, fee increases or method changes that result in an increase, are required to go through the BCD Fee Notice process; please send ePermitting a draft copy of your fees prior to submitting for Notice to avoid any delays or potential requirement to re-notice.

​In 2018 ePermitting moved to an Azure data center and our Citizen Access (ACA) site changed URLs.  For the convenience of our public users, Accela set up a URL redirect.  This means that when a user visits the old URL for Citizen Access (https://aca.oregon.accela.com/oregon) there is a redirect that automatically and seamlessly routes the user to the current URL for Citizen Access (https://aca-oregon.accela.com/oregon).  Beginning in early 2023, Accela will retire this URL redirect and users will get an error if they try to access the old URL.  To avoid any issues, please be sure to update your browser “favorites” for Citizen Access to www.BuildingPermits.Oregon.gov, update your local agency websites with any reference to ACA, and help pass along the message to your public users!

As one of the adjustments that ePermitting made to facilitate online transactions during the pandemic, we created  “homeowner licenses.” These “licenses” allowed homeowners to bypass the licensing requirements online and apply for permits. We provided a report that jurisdictions could run to track these applications, and also sent out packets to jurisdictions so that they could choose whether or not to provide this information to customers. We have had a number of jurisdictions request that these "licenses" be made permanent. We also have some jurisdictions that do not want homeowners to apply online. 

The plan for online homeowner application is:

1. To see if we can find a better solution that allows homeowners to apply online without these dummy licenses; this will take some time and will be part of our overall efforts improve ACA.
2. For now, we will continue to maintain the homeowner licenses for those jurisdictions that want to use them; and,
3. For those jurisdictions that do NOT wish to use this option, please let us know by sending an email to the Kayako Helpdesk, we can put a condition on the licenses so that they cannot be used in your jurisdiction. Note: this is an all or nothing decision - if your agency wishes to allow homeowner application case-by-case, you would need to leave this option available.

The receipt has been updated to allow agencies to create specific information for the header when the receipt is issued for a POS transaction.  

Over the past couple of years, you may have noticed that the header for a POS transaction is not related to the module where the POS transaction occurred, but rather to the preferred module for the user who performed the transaction.  For agencies using only one module (e.g. Onsite only agencies, Building only agencies and Planning only agencies), this is not a problem.  Agencies using multiple modules may have users whose preferred module is Building, but sometimes perform POS transactions in other modules.

To accommodate those agencies using multiple modules, a new option has been added for Agency Contact Info.  The Agency Contact Info POS allows the agency to have specific values for: 

• Jurisdiction Name
• Address Line 1
• Address Line 2
• Address City
• Address State
• Address Zip Code
• Contact Phone
• Website Address
• Email From
• FAX phone

Right now, these values are set to the Building module values for all agencies, except those agencies using only Onsite or Planning modules.  If the agency is using only the Onsite module, the values are set to the same as the Agency Contact Info Onsite.  For those using only the Planning module, the values are set to those of  Agency Contact Info Planning. 

If your agency wants to customize the value for POS transactions, please submit a help desk ticket for ‘New values for AGENCY_CONTACT_INFO_POS’  with the desired values for each item.

Recently there has been an increase in the requests for new/added users in Accela; and with these requests, the ePermitting Team has noticed a few spots on our Add/Remove User form that needed to be updated to make the process a little smoother.  We are including information on what has been updated so you know what to expect when filling out the Add/Remove User form. 

We have added a User Jurisdiction field, this will allow you to free type the accountholder’s Jurisdiction since some users work in multiple Jurisdictions. 

We have updated the Department section which is now a dropdown instead of a checkbox selection. The Department determines which dropdown the user will appear in for assignment purposes, and because of this, only one department can be selected. This change makes the answer on this a little more straightforward.  

We have also updated the User Group section – the user group determines the level of access that the user is granted for each module you want them working in. Note: your agency has to have the module turned on and configured in order to grant permission to it, so if you don’t have the Planning, Public Works, or Onsite Module(s) in use - do not select that module’s user group.  We also made the user group permissions a dropdown instead of free type, to make it a little easier to see what is available when you are comparing with the PDF User Group Permissions documents that outline what access is granted for each user group.   

The last update is the addition of a brand new section where you can opt the new user into the epermitting notification emails that we have available.  To opt them in to email notifications, check the box next to the appropriate notification type and the user will be added to that email notification list in the GovDelivery system that ePermitting uses to send out important informational emails and outage notifications to everyone. 
requirement a little more straightforward.

There were some additional updates to the language in the form to help better direct you in what information we are looking for. You can find the new Add/Remove User form, an instructional sheet on how to fill out the form, and the User Group Permissions PDF documents at Adding/Removing User Accounts - Powered by Kayako Help Desk Software. We also wanted to be sure everyone knows that when a user’s account is being disabled, you must also fill out this same Add/Remove User form which includes the removal of any auto-assign if the person is an inspector and to designate the next inspector who should be set up with auto-assign. 

We appreciate that everyone uses this important form and hope the updates make the process smoother for everyone.